Few leaders of the modern Church of England have steered it through as many crises as Robert Runcie who died on 11 July, 2000, aged 78.

During the 11 years of his archbishopric, he had to deal with complex internal issues such as the ordination of women and homosexuality among priests.

He will also be remembered as an outspoken critic of the Thatcher government for its policies in inner cities and its conduct during the miners’ strike.

He is perhaps less well known as a man of immense personal courage who served as a tank commander in the Second World War and won the Military Cross for two feats of bravery.

Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie was born on 2 October, 1921, in Great Crosby, Liverpool , into a not particularly religious Presbyterian family. He was educated at Merchant Taylor’s School, Crosby, prior to entering Brasenose College , Oxford .

He initially went to Methodist Sunday school at St Luke’s Church until his confirmation aged 14 after which he switched to the Anglo-Catholic St Faith’s Church.

Serving in the Scots Guards in the Second World War, he earned the Military Cross for two feats of bravery in March 1945 – pulling a man from a burning tank under enemy fire and taking his tank into an exposed position to knock out three anti-tank guns.

After the war, he returned to Oxford and gained a first class degree in Greats before entering Westcott House, a theological college in Cambridge . Here he studied for a diploma rather than a degree in theology.

After his ordination in 1950 he served as a curate in the parish of All Saints in the wealthy Newcastle upon Tyne suburb of Gosforth. After two years he returned to Westcott House as chaplain and later, vice principal.

In 1956 he was elected fellow and dean of Trinity Hall in Cambridge where he met his future wife, Rosalind, who was daughter of the college bursar. They married in 1957 and had two children.

In 1960, he became principal of Cuddesdon theological college, near Oxford . During his 10 years at the college he transformed it from a repressively monastic institute into a liberal, academically high-achieving college.

He was made Bishop of St Albans in 1970 and ran a flourishing diocese. In 1979, he was genuinely surprised to be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

During Archbishop Runcie’s liberal tenure the church adopted a more lenient stance toward homosexuality and took the first steps toward the ordination of women. He also officiated at the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer.

The historic visit of Pope John Paul II to Canterbury in 1982, which Archbishop Runcie organised, brought the Anglican and Roman churches closer than they had been for hundreds of years.

The later years of his archbishopric were marked by the kidnap of his special envoy, Terry Waite, in the Lebanon , the suicide of Rev Dr Gareth Bennett and criticism from the right-wing press because of his often anti-government stance.

Despite these problems, Archbishop Runcie will be remembered as a spiritual and popular archbishop and his years in Lambeth as one of the most colourful and distinguished eras in the recent history of the church.